Integrated development environments (IDEs) provide an interface through which developers can author, modify, compile and deploy software on. Among the plurality of applications developed and tested, IDEs enable development and testing of location based or location enabled applications. Currently available IDEs that provide a testing platform for location based applications includes an iOS based development environment as depicted in FIG. 1. However, the iOS based development environment provides only limited options for simulating geographical locations where a developed application (application) can be tested. For developers (users) having a location specific content (for example, navigational applications like Skout, telenav, foursquare) it is quite difficult to robustly test the application for global scenarios worldwide. Further, for testing the location based application for real life scenarios, the testing process demands physically travelling to those locations. Another existing android based development environment used for testing location based application is depicted in FIG. 2. The android based development environment provides simulation of any geographical location provided by a user. The information of the geographical location can be provided in terms of latitude and longitude parameters as shown in FIG. 2. The android based development platform requires creation of GPS eXchange files (GPX files) or Keyhole Markup Language Files (KML files) for a geographical location entered by the user. Further, the above created files need to be added to Android Dalvik Debug Monitor Server (DDMS). The creation of the GPX files or the KML files requires above-average coding skills, for example, even in the simplest formats, in order to create GPX files or KML files, a developer has to work with data, as shown in FIG. 3. Alternatively, the developer may also upload the GPX files and the KML files into the emulator, which can be used to simulate geolocations (points). However, only those points that are predefined in the KML/GPX files can be simulated. In other words, the developer cannot test their applications on any location other than those geo-locations that fall exactly on the lines defined by the GPX/KML files or exactly the latitude/longitude coordinates defined in the simulator. Thus, the android based approach is not only cumbersome but also impose limitations.
Another existing approach for testing location based applications involves field testing. Most developers carry out field testing of their applications by employing people who use the application in neighborhoods of a geographic location, where the application needs to be tested. However, one may also want to test the behavior of a location based application in Paris, in spite of the application written while being physically located in India. Field testing requires the developer to employ a workforce that would walk/drive around various neighborhoods of different geolocations and test the applications' behavior (or issues with the same) in those locations. This existing method does not provide a scalable model and is very labor intensive.
Thus, a method that provides a robust and simple simulation process that enhances developer's capability to write scalable, location-aware software applications will be appreciated.